Wave-Powered "Dolphin Speaker" Could Let Us Talk to Dolphins

NOAA's National Ocean Service /CC BY-SA 2.0 We know that dolphins and other cetaceans are amazing communicators, capable of making far more sounds than humans, but so far we've been unable to know what they're saying. Scientists at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology have developed a technology that may allow us to not only better understand their sounds, but possibly communicate with them too. There have been plenty of studies that have recorded the sounds that dolphins make, but few that playback those sounds. Dolphins can hear and communicate at frequencies lower than 20 kHz and up to 150kHz, which is too high for humans to hear. They're also able to produce sounds at many frequencies at once. No speakers had existed that could project at that wide range of frequencies. So, the Tokyo University team developed the dolphin speaker , an extremely broadband sp...